“Our Blog thrives on your thoughts…”
“….. I am enjoying your musings about little people and find them refreshingly diverse in style, unapologetic about touching on difficult topics and open-ended in their messages. I have begun to feel like a friendly member of your blog’s community of learning and reflection.” – Robert Serpell Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, University of Zambia
“Masala Chai is a real inspiration! It is combining the everyday culture of children and their families with scientific analyses in a most reader friendly, eben entertaining way. The blogs are unique. For a cultural child developmentalist like me they give important insights into some pockets of the varied cultures of India and connect to the global world at the same time. I adore the pictures! They are rich in expression and esthetically beautiful. I am very thankful to Nandita and Pooja and others who are actively involved for having created Masala Chai. I hope for the Masala Chai community to continue growing an striving!” – Heidi Keller Ph.D., Universität Osnabrück, Germany
“What I like most in Masala Chai is that through ordinary and minute narratives it shows the pervasiveness of cultural dimension in our life trajectories. Masala Chai gently demonstrates -week after week- how culture is like an “invisible elephant”: large and looming like an elephant if we have an idea of what we have to see, and at the same time, invisible, if we do not know what to look for.” – Giuseppina Marsico Ph.D., Aalborg University (Denmark), University of Salerno (Italy)
“I loved the grass basket story – beautiful and powerful.” – Vimala Ramachandran, Ph. D. (Educationist)
“Delightful read!!made complete sense to me as an adult in late twenties..I used to perceive my mother as a strict parent but now I am full of praise for her ‘balanced upbringing’ :).. justifying her parental endeavors done in the past as necessary and favourable for us..I think not just children, but parents also grow more accepting of their children’s reasoning..it’s all just a part of growing up I think
Also, I absolutely support the idea of having realistic role models with close proximity.. thanks Masala Chai
Baba this growing up business is very complicated but thank you for sorting it out to some extent for your readers
Your blog post are helping us to be more empathetic in the true sense “
-Kalpana Jamwal (Doctoral student)
Discussions
“...I stay in Mumbai and I strongly disagree with u. As compared to other cities, this city focusses on overall development of the child. For children under 6- there is hardly any rule /restriction or for that matter assessment.
The children can do whatever they want to do.
Infact Mumbai is home to different teaching style and methods. My child is 5 and he doesn’t recognize alphabets.. the teachers are absolutely Okay with the fact that he may not know alphabets but he knows that giraffe is always standing while it’s asleep.
So, I can understand the same happening in a small town but Mumbai- no!!!” – Meghna (Parent)
“…Bruno Bettelheim discusses the value of fairy stories in enhancing the fantasy life of children ( in contrast to Montessori’s approach) and your article reflects his view.
I was also wondering about young boys being deprived this chance. If one visited a family, without notice, I wonder if the little boy in the home would be playing with a doll. Probably not, given the rigid gender socialization prevailing in India. But I recall an instance, of Prof. Bettye Caldwell going to one of the Mobile Creches centres on her way to our meeting at NCERT. She found all the children engaged in varied activities and noticed one little boy sitting in a corner, with a doll on his lap. She commented that this reflected the quality of the programme.
Good to have masala chai on a Friday morning’s tea break.” – Dr. S. Anandalakshmy (Eminent academician and Consultant in Child Development and Education)
MASALA CHAI 